Hindi heartland states to see staggered polls

New Delhi: The Hindi heartland, where the BJP had done well in the 2014 elections and where the strikes on a terror training camp in Pakistan are seen to have a lot of resonance, will largely have a staggered Lok Sabha election across several phases or will go the polls in the last phases.

While Bihar and Uttar Pradesh will see polling across all seven phases from April 11 to May 19, Himachal Pradesh will go the polls in the last phase on May 19 and Haryana in the penultimate phase on May 12. 

Madhya Pradesh and Jharkhand will have a four-phased election which will end with the last phase on May 19. The two-phase election in Rajasthan, where BJP had won all the seats in 2014, will also be held in the fifth (May 6) and the seventh and last phase (May 19). 

Meanwhile, Gujarat, where too the BJP had got a clean sweep in 2014, will go the polls in the third phase (April 23). Maharashtra will go for election in the first four phases - April 11, 18, 23 and 29 - and Chhattisgarh in the first three phases. 

Uttarakhand will go to the polls in the first phase on April 11.